Participant recruitment in an online era: A reflection on ethics and identity

Abstract

In this article I reflect on my experiences of using Facebook as a recruitment tool. Although there were many benefits associated with using this method of recruitment, there were also several unanticipated ethical dilemmas that arose. This article reflects on these dilemmas, locating them within some broader concerns around online research and privacy, and considers some potential avenues for avoiding similar issues in future research. It became apparent that these ethical issues were heightened for me as a doctoral researcher in a process of identity transition. I consider how this state of ‘shifting’ identity heightened my experience of these ethical tensions, and brought to the fore questions around online identity management and ways of ‘doing’ identity online.

Introduction

Social media and other internet based platforms have become increasingly central to our social and professional lives. Although this usage continues to be shaped by class and socio-economic status (White and Selwyn, 2013) it is nonetheless unsurprising that these technologies have also played an increasingly important role in the ways we ‘do’ research. The internet and social media or social networking sites (SNSs) more specifically now feature commonly as a topic of research, the site where research occurs, and as a pathway through which to locate and recruit research participants (Roberts et al., 2013). It is this last point that is of particular concern in this article. While research pertaining to, or conducted using, social media sites is increasingly prominent, accompanying this has been the creation of novel ethical concerns that require ongoing exploration and reflection from researchers.

During the course of my doctoral research, which involved the use of social media to recruit participants, a number of unexpected ethical issues were raised. These issues presented unique challenges for me as a novice researcher in an emerging field, as well as providing some useful insight into issues of privacy in online spaces and the researcher/participant relationship. In the first half of this article I reflect on the unexpected ethical issues encountered in using my personal Facebook account as a recruitment mechanism. In doing so, it is my aim to draw attention to the potential ethical dilemmas of recruiting participants via social media, to locate this issue within the broader theme of online privacy, and to consider ways in which researchers may avoid or mitigate these issues in their own research.

Reflecting upon my own experiences it became apparent that many of the ethical issues I encountered could be traced back to larger issues of researcher identity and online identity management. In the second half of this article I turn to consider the implications of social media use for the management or separation of my personal or ‘private’ identity from my ‘academic’ or student researcher identity. The particular issues that I faced were also located in my position at the time as being in a state of identity transition, as my identity began to shift from that of student and novice researcher to academic and early career researcher. The sense of anxiety this evoked undoubtedly influenced – and perhaps heightened – my experiences of the ethical tensions produced in ‘doing’ recruitment via social media.

Before reflecting upon my own experiences, the following discussion provides a brief overview of the research project at hand. I then move on to consider existing research and debate on online methods and research ethics in order to locate my own experiences and reflections within this. It shall become particularly apparent during this discussion that, although there has been considerable attention paid to online methodology and ethics in recent years, there is still relatively little focus on the use of personal social media accounts as a recruitment avenue.

Study background

Before continuing, it is useful to provide a brief overview of my research project and the ways in which social media featured within it. My research was concerned with exploring young adults’ experiences and perceptions of unwanted sexual attention in licensed venues in Melbourne, Australia (and those interested in the findings of this research can refer to Fileborn (2012, 2014) for further information). A range of research methods were used in exploring this issue, including online surveys and focus groups with young adults who go to clubs and pubs, and interviews with victims/survivors who had been sexually assaulted within a licensed venue.

Participants for the online surveys and focus groups ¹ were recruited during 2011 using a range of strategies, including email lists, paid advertisements on two websites, and through postings on various website forums, as well as using my personal Facebook account and encouraging my ‘friends’ to share these posts on their own Facebook pages. I aimed to recruit participants aged between 18 and 30 years old, and the majority of my Facebook friends (and their friends, and so on) at the time fell within my target demographic group. The advertisement for the online survey consisted of a brief explanation of the project and a direct link to the survey, while the focus group posts provided an explanation of the project and my university contact details for interested individuals. It is this aspect of my online recruiting efforts, and the resulting dilemmas that arose, that are the focus of my reflections and discussion here.

Although this article focuses on the more negative or problematic aspects of my experience in recruiting participants via my Facebook account, I also experienced many benefits from recruiting in this way. Briefly, using Facebook to attract participants gave me ready access to the demographic group that I was aiming to recruit. Importantly in the context of a doctoral research project, the use of Facebook to recruit was free, and as I already had an established account there was limited time and effort required on my part in advertising for participants in this way. The interactive nature of Facebook meant that other friends could ‘share’ my advertisement on their own Facebook pages, increasing the exposure of my research again with minimal effort or further investment on my own behalf. Given the constraints on time and funding associated with doctoral research, this approach was very beneficial. There was usually a spike in survey responses when a friend shared my advertisement through their own account, indicating that this strategy had some success in attracting participants to my study.

SNSs and Web 2.0: A digital revolution

The development of Web 2.0 marked a significant shift in the ways in which the internet could be used, and who was able to use it. In particular, Web 2.0 ‘democratized’ internet usage in the sense that considerably less expertise was required to build web content. This has led to what Jenkins et al. (cited in Beer and Burrows, 2007) describe as a participatory culture, ‘where users are increasingly involved in creating web content as well as consuming it’ (Beer and Burrows, 2007: 2.1, original emphasis) – although Crook (2012) argues that it is consumption that dominates young people’s internet use. Social networking sites are a hallmark of Web 2.0. Henderson and Bowley (2010: 239) define social media as ‘collaborative online applications and technologies that enable participation, connectivity, user-generated content, sharing of information, and collaboration amongst a community of users’. A plethora of social media sites currently exist, with popular examples including sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogging platforms such as WordPress, amongst many others, although this is, of course, a dynamic and rapidly evolving space (Beer and Burrows, 2007). For the unfamiliar, Facebook is an SNS that enables users to create a profile, to upload photos, to ‘like’ various pages and causes, to provide information about their personal and professional lives (where they work, their educational background, religion, political views, and so forth), to become ‘friends’ and connect with other users, and to post comments on other users’ timelines and posts, amongst many other constantly evolving functions.

Although these sites have garnered an increasing prominence in our social and professional lives, there is a lack of consensus around the definition of ‘social networking sites’ (Beer, 2008; Henderson and Bowley, 2010). Nor is there firm agreement on the purpose of an SNS and what constitutes ‘appropriate’ use of any given SNS, with ‘the cultures that emerge around SNSs’ being varied and diverse (boyd and Ellison, 2008: 210). In particular, there is division around the use of SNSs as a space where making social contact with strangers is appropriate, whether these spaces function as a site for continuing pre-formed (or, perhaps, ‘real life’) friendships, or anywhere in between (boyd and Ellison, 2008). The general consensus, according to boyd and Ellison (2008), is that SNSs are by and large a space for the continuation of social relationships that were ‘pre-existing’ in some sense. Norms of friendship and interaction are site specific and context dependent. Given that there is, on the whole, a lack of consensus regarding the ‘appropriate’ use and etiquette of SNSs, this can cause difficulty for researchers operating in these spaces, and I reflect on this issue momentarily. Online spaces and SNSs also provide a novel avenue for the recruitment of participants, and I move on to consider this issue now.

The rise of the SNS as a research and recruitment tool

The online world has undoubtedly increasingly played a role in academic research, including as a means of recruiting participants (as was the case in this study. See also Eysenbach and Till, 2001; Henderson and Bowley, 2010; Park and Calamaro, 2013) – though, as Roberts et al. (2013) argue, online methodology has not yet entered the ‘mainstream’. Lohse (2013), for example, reported on the use of Facebook as an effective and cost-efficient means of recruiting participants for health education research, in this instance through the use of paid advertisements. Similarly, Park and Calamaro (2013) promote Facebook advertisements as an effective avenue for reaching and recruiting young participants, and Andrews (2012: 34) lists the benefits of social media recruitment as including ‘cost-effectiveness, speed and efficiency; accessible, convenient form of communication; ability to target a specific patient population; instant global reach; [and] interactive capabilities’. Recruitment through SNSs and social media has the distinct advantage of allowing real-time interaction with potential participants (Andrews, 2012; Wandel, 2008), although this aspect of SNSs was also a source of much concern in my own experience. Clearly, there are many benefits in the use of social networking sites for participant recruitment.

In contrast, Allison et al. (2012) argue that young people are increasingly wary of social media advertisements, and may be reluctant to ‘click through’ to advertisements. They instead promote the use of ‘online referral strategies’, whereby a small number of initial participants are recruited who then act as ‘seeds’ who will promote the study to friends in their networks (a strategy not dissimilar to snowballing) (Allison et al., 2012: 209–210). As Andrews (2012) has also noted, there is a lack of clear regulation or guidelines pertaining to recruitment through an SNS, and this parallels my own experience. Additionally, SNS recruitment raises a range of concerns such as ‘confidentiality concerns; information overload; [and] reaching populations without a computer’, whereas others simply may not favour SNSs as a mode of communication (Andrews, 2012: 36).

Although there are many advantages to SNS recruitment, it is not without its disadvantages or ethical challenges. The studies discussed here have largely been concerned with SNS recruitment that has involved the use of paid advertisements, ‘official’ study pages or the use of participant ‘seeds’. There is decidedly less (if any) discussion on the use of personal Facebook or other SNS accounts as a tool for promoting recruitment, and the specific advantages and disadvantages of this recruitment method – although Beer and Burrows (2007: 4.3) have noted the need for researchers to ‘become part of the collaborative cultures of Web 2.0’ more generally. With this in mind, it is important to consider and reflect upon the unique challenges and ethical issues raised through the use of personal social networking accounts in conducting research, and in the context of this article as a tool to recruit participants.

Ethics and social media research

The increased use of SNSs as a research tool has also been accompanied by unique ethical concerns and challenges (Markham and Buchanan, 2012; Roberts et al., 2013). Although there is an emerging body of literature exploring these challenges, there is strikingly little discussion about the use of personal SNS accounts in research. Indeed, at the time of conducting my own research there was relatively little guidance available from the literature as to how I should respond to the particular ethical issues that unfolded. Nor were these issues identified in the ethics review process (or by myself or my supervisors) prior to initiating my research. As others have noted, ethics committees do not always provide guidance on the ethical dilemmas faced by researchers working in novel fields, instead being concerned with more ‘standard’ ethical issues, such as participant anonymity and confidentiality (Ess and Jones, 2004). Although broad guidelines have been developed for conducting ethical research online (Ess, 2002; Markham and Buchanan, 2012), it has not yet been articulated how these might be applied in practice in using personal SNS accounts for recruitment. Of course, developing all-encompassing and highly specific guidelines for ethical conduct in online spaces is also difficult, if not impossible, given their fluid and evolving nature (Markham and Buchanan, 2012; Snee, 2013). This suggests that being ‘ethical’ in online research is a practice that is constantly negotiated, requiring ongoing reflexivity and engagement by the researcher.

Although many of the ethical issues presented by doing online research are similar to those faced in ‘real world’ research, research involving social media platforms also has ‘particular affordances, and concomitant consequences, that make it unlike other research contexts’ (Henderson et al., 2013: 546; see also Battles, 2010; Robards, 2013; Roberts et al., 2013; Whiteman, 2007). Unique ethical concerns arise, according to Henderson and colleagues, around ownership of data, the nature of ‘private’ vs ‘public’ space online, the identity of participants, and identifying the possible ramifications of participation in both the immediate and long term (Henderson et al., 2013: 547; see also Eysenbach and Till, 2001; Jacobson, 1999; Sharkey et al., 2011; Thomas, 2004). The characterization of online space as either ‘public’ or ‘private’ had particular implications for my experience, and as such the literature on this issue will be addressed in more detail here.

Conceptualizing what terms such as ‘public’ and ‘private’ mean in the context of online space is itself no easy task, and these concepts cannot necessarily be operationalized in the same ways that they would in ‘real life’ (and, indeed, the public/private divide is far from straightforward in the offline world as well). That is, online spaces do not always fall neatly into the categories of ‘public’ and ‘private’, and Eysenbach and Till (2001) suggest that this may render a dichotomous understanding of space as inappropriate in the online world (see also Lange, 2008; Markham and Buchanan, 2012; Robards, 2013). As Berry notes, ‘the technologically flexible, dialogical and fluid nature of the internet … lends itself to being conceptualized as a vast public sphere’ (Berry, 2004: 324). It is this assumption of online space as ‘public’ which, Berry suggests, actively creates some of the ethical conundrums encountered in online research. SNSs are governed by their own formal and informal rules of use, and there may be well-established expectations of user behaviour, including in relation to ‘confidentiality and respect for privacy’ (Berry, 2004: 326; see also Robards, 2013).

Although many SNSs require users to register for a profile (for example, through providing a name and email address), they are essentially open for anyone who wishes to register, and this may also create a (false) sense of an SNS being ‘public space’. Bakardjieva and Feenberg (2000: 239) note that many users of online forums and SNSs ‘are only vaguely aware of the public nature of their exchanges’, and these authors argue the need for researchers to exercise caution in online research on this basis (see also Beddows, 2008; Robards, 2013). In particular, researchers investigating online spaces must, according to Bakardjieva and Feenberg (2000), avoid ‘alienation’ of online users. Alienation refers here to the ‘appropriation of the products of somebody’s action for purposes never intended or foreseen by the actor … over which the producer has no knowledge or control’ (Bakardjieva and Feenberg, 2000: 236). Although it may be possible to ‘lurk’ and to view users’ online contributions without their knowledge, this fact alone is not sufficient to justify the use of these contributions without the informed consent of the user(s). Indeed, the act of ‘lurking’ often directly contravenes the norms of acceptable online behaviour (Eysenbach and Till, 2001: 1103).

Difficulty can be encountered in categorizing information on SNSs as intended for either a ‘public’ or ‘private’ audience. In part, this can be attributed to the difficulty in ascertaining the author’s intended audience (Lange, 2008). Whereas a number of researchers have put forth the argument that accessibility of data amounts to these data being ‘public’ in nature (that is, if access to an account is not restricted through the use of privacy settings – see Jacobson, 1999), accessibility ‘does not necessarily mean the data were intended or perceived as public’, as others have noted (Henderson et al., 2013: 550; see also Bakardjieva and Feenberg, 2000; Barnes, 2004; Ess and Jones, 2004; Eysenbach and Till, 2001; Markham and Buchanan, 2012; Roberts et al., 2013; Snee, 2013; Whiteman, 2007). Likewise, Lange’s (2008) work on users of the popular video site YouTube used a range of strategies, such as the use of obscure tags, to limit access to otherwise ‘publicly’ available videos rendering these videos as what Lange refers to as ‘publicly private’. This further demonstrates the complexity of identifying online information as being produced for either ‘public’ or ‘private’ consumption.

Although the research discussed here has provided some highly useful insights into the management of ethical issues that arise during the course of research that involves the use of SNSs and other online spaces, there are a number of gaps apparent that this article seeks to contribute towards. In particular, there is little discussion on the unique problems that may arise in using personal Facebook accounts in the promotion of a research study. Nor is there adequate consideration of communication with prospective participants through Facebook, despite such interactions being ripe with ambiguity. Markham and Buchanan (2012) note the value of researchers sharing and reflecting upon their own online ethical challenges. Applying the broad guidelines developed by Markham and Buchanan (2012), the following discussion provides an exploration of the ethical challenges faced in my own experiences in using my personal social networking accounts as a means of recruiting participants.

The ethics of recruitment via social media

Although, as noted earlier, having friends share my advertisement on their own Facebook pages was beneficial in terms of recruitment, this action proved to be something of a double-edged sword. Posting data of any sort on the internet is generally associated with a lack of control. That is, internet users can easily share, copy and re-post content that has been created by other users (Berry, 2004). This ability for my Facebook friends to share my study advertisements was in many respects a desired aspect of my recruitment strategy. However, in practice it also caused a difficulty for me in keeping track of where my advertisements had been ‘placed’, who was sharing them, and with whom. This resulted in me, to some extent, losing control over how my own research was promoted.

Once friends had shared my advertisement, this created the unexpected ethical issue of how to respond to comments and questions that were made on these posts by friends of my Facebook friends. Who had responsibility to respond in this instance, and who was in an appropriate position to speak? Did I, as the researcher, have a responsibility to keep track of where my advertisement was shared, monitor questions and comments posted by other users (not necessarily users who I was friends with through my own account), and respond to these as required? Or did I only have an obligation to reply to messages sent to me directly either to my personal Facebook account or to the contact email address provided in the advertisement? How could I know whether comments made on friends’ posts were intended for me to see and respond to? Although similar issues may arise with print copies of advertisements (for example, these are readily copied and shared), the online environment is a unique one in the respect that the sharing of and comments made about my research were visible to me as well as affording me a direct line of contact with those sharing and commenting on my work. The instantaneous nature of communication on SNSs also created a perceived pressure to respond to any comments within a very short time span. There were two particular examples of other Facebook users commenting on friends’ posts of my advertisement that caused me particular anxiety, and I will cover these in more detail here.

The first instance that raised the issue of responding to comments on others’ Facebook pages was a remark made by a male friend of a friend who had shared my advertisement. This individual, with whom I had never had any interaction either on Facebook or in ‘real life’, made critical and inaccurate comments about my research for not being inclusive of men. This individual asked why men were not able to take part in my survey, despite nothing in my advertisement indicating that the research was gender specific – indeed, men were encouraged to participate. This comment was particularly problematic, as it may have led to other men also assuming that my research was not inclusive of them, and this individual’s misperception clearly required address. Fortunately, in this instance our mutual Facebook friend replied quickly and pointed out that my research was, in fact, inclusive of men, thus resolving the issue and the question of whether I needed to reply.

The second example involved another friend of a friend (again, an individual with whom I had had no prior interaction in either virtual or ‘real’ life) commenting on a friend’s post that she must be ‘old’ because she did not meet the definition of ‘young adult’ used in my research (which was 18–30 years old). Given that it can be difficult to determine the intended tone of a written comment, it was largely unclear to me whether this remark was intended as a joke or a critical appraisal of my selection criteria. Additionally, in this instance it was unclear whether this individual had intended for me to see the comment, or whether they were aware that I was also a Facebook friend of our mutual friend. This is particularly so given that social media users often lack awareness of the public nature of their exchanges, as the medium of an SNS creates the perception of privacy (Battles, 2010; Beddows, 2008; Henderson et al., 2013). Again, our mutual Facebook friend stepped in to respond that she was also ‘old’ according to my criteria, and this appeared to relieve the tension apparent in this exchange. I decided not to engage in this discussion on account of the potential for my commenting to make this individual feel uncomfortable.

The current Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) guidelines encourage researchers to consider how both the participant/potential participant and researcher are situated within the specific context, how the researcher is approaching the participant, and the perceived privacy of the situation at hand in determining whether a course of conduct is likely to be ethical (Markham and Buchanan, 2012: 8). In this particular instance the intent and context of these comments was ambiguous: the visibility of these comments did not automatically mean that they were intended for me to see, or that any response I made would be welcomed by these individuals. That the comments were made on a mutual friend’s wall rather than, for example, directed towards me in a personal message indicates that the comments may well have been intended as private, albeit in a ‘visible’ way. This is also problematic in the sense that these comments about my research were only available to me through a mutual friend’s profile page. These were not openly available comments visible to any member of the public but an exchange occurring within an often-private space. To engage in interaction with these individuals may have been exploiting the privileged access I had as my ‘private’/non-researcher self.

Beer and Burrows (2007) observe that Web 2.0 has been accompanied by a change in the ‘values of privacy’ that web users attach to their personal information, with private information and exchanges becoming more widely accessible. They argue that this raises a series of questions in relation to surveillance, and particularly who is accessing these data and for what purpose. Implicit within these questions is the notion that there are incorrect or unethical forms of surveillance, and the ambiguity of these exchanges coupled with a lack of consensus regarding ‘appropriate’ SNS etiquette made it difficult to determine whether engaging in these exchanges would fall within the unethical end of the spectrum. However, Wilkinson and Thelwall (2011: 396) suggest that personal exchanges and personal information posted on SNSs constitute a form of ‘normative privacy because there is no reasonable expectation that others ought to be protecting such information’. According to this line of reasoning it may have been appropriate for me to respond and interact with these individuals. These contrasting understandings of what constitutes privacy, and what right we have to privacy on the web indicate that there is not necessarily one correct course of action in dealing with ethical dilemmas online. Ultimately, it may fall upon the researcher to make the decision that they feel most comfortable with given the unique circumstances or context of their research.

These dilemmas were further exacerbated for me by the lack of clarity around which of my roles or identities I would be responding from if I replied to these comments. That is, would my comments be interpreted as a response from my private/personal self, or would they be interpreted as coming from a researcher (albeit, a student researcher) associated with an established and powerful academic institution? It would not necessarily have been transgressive behaviour on Facebook to join the conversation evolving on my friends’ posts, particularly as my ‘personal’ self. However, I was concerned that my friends’ friends would have interpreted my response as coming from my ‘professional’ researcher self and that this would subsequently have made them feel uncomfortable, or that my actions would be experienced as invasive, particularly if their comments had been intended as a private exchange. The act of lurking by researchers is often viewed negatively in internet communities, as highlighted earlier in this article. Would these individuals have felt intruded upon by having a researcher monitoring any conversation taking place about their research and ‘joining in’ on discourse that was intended as an exchange between established friends? Snee (2013) raises a similar concern regarding the potential for approaching participants/potential participants online to be experienced as intrusive and encroaching on privacy. The potential for the comments in question to have been intended as private communication meant that any intervention by me might have been interpreted as an invasion of privacy. It was this concern of causing a sense of discomfort through encroaching on a private exchange, balanced by the ambiguous and likely light-hearted nature of the comments, and the corrections made by mutual friends, that ultimately guided my decisions not to respond. Of course, this decision was a contextually dependent one and under different circumstances (for example, without the intervention of a mutual friend) it may have been more appropriate for me to respond.

Although in the scheme of things these were relatively minor ethical conundrums, they nonetheless caused a degree of concern for me at the time as a burgeoning student researcher. What steps could have been put in place to minimize or manage this issue? Perhaps the most obvious solution would be to create an ‘official’ Facebook page or account for the research project (Warner, 2009). In doing so all communication with potential participants can be directed through that page, and all responses would come from my role as a researcher rather than from my private or personal self. However, my own Facebook friends (and other site users) would still be able to share this page on their own timeline, and their friends would be able to comment on this, leading to some of the same issues discussed above arising. Thus, the use of an official page would only partially alleviate this problem. Another option would have been to avoid using my personal account as a recruitment avenue and to have instead relied on other recruitment strategies. In instances where other recruitment strategies are readily available, and researchers have the financial means necessary to access fruitful recruitment avenues, this may indeed be a wise option. However, in the context of a doctoral research project with minimal financial and other resources, the use of personal social networking accounts was a more viable and successful option.

Developing a pre-formed strategy for responding to comments would also have been of assistance in my own experience. That is, as with many ethical issues, pre-identifying the potential problems and having a plan in place to guide my action and minimize the likelihood of any adverse events would have likely circumvented the issues I experienced. Indeed, it was the unexpected nature of my online encounters and not knowing how I should respond that was primarily at issue here, particularly given the instantaneous nature of online communication. There was not necessarily one correct course of response in this instance, and a great deal of my anxiety emanated from the lack of a predetermined plan of action. Thus, I do not wish to recommend one prescribed form of action for other researchers to follow, but rather to encourage more careful consideration, reflection and planning prior to the use of social media accounts to promote research and recruit participants.

These experiences also point to a destabilization of the relationship between the researcher and participant, with the online environment arguably contributing towards a greater sense of obligation towards a potential participant at an earlier point of the research relationship of the researcher/researched. Although, for example, I could have been exposed to or overheard comments about my research in other (‘in real life’) public spaces that were not intended for me, would I have felt the same sense of obligation or anxiety about the perceived need to respond? For some, the answer to this question may well be ‘yes’. However, there is also a sense that intervening in an overheard conversation in a physical setting would breech established social norms. Likewise, a failure of the researcher to interject in this situation is likely to go unnoticed, with no recorded evidence of the researcher’s absence of intervention. Thus, in contrast to other social settings it is perhaps the greater visibility and relative permanence of online interaction that created a greater sense of obligation towards potential participants. This raises a series of questions and concerns about the shifting relationship, responsibility and obligation of the researcher towards participants and potential participants. Although a detailed exploration of these concerns is beyond the remit of this article, they suggest a need for further discussion and debate around the obligations of the researcher in online interactions and whether these may differ from research or recruitment taking place in non-virtual spaces.

Additionally, an aspect of the concern caused by this issue was related to my position as a transitioning student researcher at the time. It may be useful in the future for those considering using their personal social media accounts to promote research or other professional activity to spend some time reflecting on the issues this may pose for their identity management. Veletsianos and Kimmons (2013) have recommended that universities discuss social media use and management with higher degree students, and I would echo their suggestion here. In the remainder of this discussion I move on to consider the ways in which the use of my personal Facebook account to promote my research exposed a crises of identity as I shifted from a ‘student’ to ‘student researcher’ to ‘early career researcher’.

Social media, identity management and identity transition

In reflecting upon this experience it became increasingly apparent that the ethical issues I encountered were both related to, and magnified by, being in a state of ‘identity flux’ as a burgeoning student researcher coming to grips with the prospect of having a ‘professional’ identity for the first time (see Harrison, 2008: 237–238). This may, in part, also account for my failure to pre-identify the potential issues associated with using my personal Facebook account to promote my research: the need to consider or ‘separate’ my personal and professional selves had simply never been an issue for me previously. Thus, this experience brought to the fore a novel blurring of personal and professional identities, and forced me to reflect for the first time as to how (or whether) I would manage these aspects of my self. Indeed, Kimmons and Veletsianos (2014: 293) argue that investigating student teachers’ use of SNSs is particularly insightful because they are in ‘a unique transitional phase’ in which they are traversing the ‘shift between the private life of a student and the more public life of a professional educator’. Before continuing this reflection, it is useful to outline the particular approach I take to conceptualizing my identity, as this has implications for how one’s identity may be managed.

There are multiple, competing understandings of what identity is – that is, ‘our understanding of who we are in the world in relation to others’ (Lavis, 2010: 319). I take a post-structuralist approach to making sense of identity. A post-structuralist position takes the stance that we do not have one stable, fixed identity across the course of our lives. Rather, identity is fluid, dynamic, complex, multifaceted and fragmented (Lavis, 2010; Truett Anderson, 1997). It is something that we are constantly in the course of ‘accomplishing’ (as per West and Zimmerman’s (1987) approach to ‘doing’ gender) through our embodied actions, our beliefs, our engagement with different social and cultural discourses, and so forth (see Goode, 2006). This suggests that our sense of identity is shaped in response to context, and through our interactions with the world around us (Goode, 2006; Lavis, 2010; Scheffel, 2011; Truett Anderson, 1997). As identity is something that is in the process of actively being accomplished, this opens up the possibility for change in how our identity is ‘done’ at any given time. At the same time, there are multiple (albeit overlapping) identities that we are constantly in the process of accomplishing – our personal and professional identities being two examples of particular relevance here (though other examples could include our selves as partner, friend, daughter, sister, our online selves [which can also include multiple iterations of identity; see Seery, 2010; Truett Anderson, 1997] and so forth) – and these facets of identity ‘interact with one another in complicated ways’ (Kimmons and Veletsianos, 2014: 293).

The need to consider how we, as academics or professional researchers and educators, manage our online and offline selves has become increasingly pressing given the infiltration of the internet into almost all aspects of our lives (Veletsianos, 2013). Indeed, within at least some institutions there is an increasing expectation that academic staff will maintain an online presence. Yet, there have also been negative consequences associated with this, with a number of documented instances of academic staff being retrenched as a result of posting ‘inappropriate’ content through their personal SNS accounts (Thompson, 2014). My own experiences thus took place within a context in which the use of SNSs is becoming both increasingly professionally expected, but also operating as a site of surveillance and discipline.

Kimmons and Veletsianos argue that a consideration of our online/offline identities is important, as there are likely to be ‘powerful forces that shape educators’ participation in SNS thereby impacting their sense of identity’ (Kimmons and Veletsianos, 2014: 293). In a sense, the use of my personal Facebook account in promoting my research unveiled – or made more visible – my shifting identity(s). For the first time I was forced to consider issues such as whether I was representing my personal or my professional/researcher self when responding to comments on Facebook. This is not to suggest that these aspects of my evolving identity are easily segmented in such a simplistic manner. However, it raised the issue of how I would actively manage – or how/whether I would accomplish – these two components of my identity via social media. To what extent did I want my professional and personal lives to overlap, and what would be the consequences of the choices I made in relation to this? Again, these are dilemmas to which there is no one correct response, and I do not intend for my discussion to be viewed as overly prescriptive.

Other academics have commented on the challenges involved in online identity management (Beaulieu and Estalella, 2012; Ewins, 2005; Veletsianos, 2013; Veletsianos and Kimmons, 2013). Veletsianos and Kimmons’ (2013) study of academics’ use of social media found that their usage was shaped through the tensions apparent between personal and professional roles. Their participants mediated their usage through the lens of these identities, and either filtered the nature of their online activity through the lens of professionalism or limited their visibility online. In some respects, sites such as Facebook can in fact facilitate control over our personal and professional selves. For example, it is now possible to separate Facebook friends according to relationship context such as family, close friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues, and to control which friends are able to see particular posts. Such functional developments have allowed users to form ‘highly strategic practices around managing their “audiences” on social networking sites’ (Robards, 2013: 222). However, in other ways social media can also contribute towards a blurring of identities and social worlds, and presents challenges for the management of our various identities. Our personal and professional selves converge online owing to the geographical nature of online space, which is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. Robards (2013: 224) notes, for example, that sites such as Facebook ‘collapse various social categories into the single category of Friend’, as well as collapsing or blurring the ‘performative contexts and audiences’ that we would otherwise encounter as discrete locations in the offline world. It would seem that we are able to manage our identities online to the extent that sites such as Facebook provide us with the tools and functions to do so.

In some respects SNSs and other new communication technologies open up the possibilities for postmodern identity accomplishment: as Kirkup (2010: 76) highlights, ‘there is now a potentially huge range of media and kinds of narratives we can engage in’ when accomplishing our personal, professional and various other identities. There is undoubtedly a tension that arises, however, ‘between personal and professional identity, [and] the spectrum of sharing that lies between the two’ (Veletsianos, 2013: 644; see also Beaulieu and Estalella, 2012; Kirkup, 2010). For me, this tension lay firstly in my experiences of communicating (or not, as the case may be) with potential participants via Facebook. Upon realizing this new tension between my personal and burgeoning professional selves, new anxieties arose in relation to what implications this may have for the information I had, and would, share via my social media accounts. Could I, for example, be held responsible in a professional context for past content on my page given that I was now also utilizing my account in a professional sense, and particularly given the seeming push for academics to have a presence online? What type of content adequately reflects my professional self, without necessarily compromising expression of my personal identity(s)? I have subsequently also ‘friended’ a range of colleagues and other researchers in my field, and have continued to promote my research activities and outputs, further blurring the lines between professional and personal usage.

In my own case, these tensions and anxieties have resulted in increased vigilance and reflexivity when deciding what to post and how to express myself online. Every post is made through the lens of ‘how would this look to others in my profession?’ There is increased awareness of professional performativity in my day-to-day interactions online, even within otherwise personal spaces. Although such tensions are perhaps not unique to online spaces, they are heightened by the visibility or public nature of online spaces and the aforementioned lack of clarity or consensus around what constitutes public or private interaction online. This is a tension that is particularly heightened for me as an early career academic still seeking to establish myself within the field and within secure employment (see Ewins, 2005; Kirkup, 2010), especially given the negative impact that social media usage has had on other academics’ employment prospects, as noted earlier. This suggests that context is likely to play a role in the ways in which researchers seek to manage the boundaries of their personal and professional selves, and it is quite possible that more established academics do not experience these challenges, or that they face an entirely different set of anxieties regarding their online identity management. In line with a post-structuralist view of identity, approaches to managing our identities are thus likely to shift across time as our identities evolve and transition.

Conclusion

In this article I have sought to contribute towards a growing discourse on ethics and online research. Given the current lack of discussion on the use of personal SNS accounts for participant recruitment, this article sought to initiate discussion and reflection on the particular issues and challenges this can give rise to. The use of personal SNS accounts as recruitment tools in my own experience elicited a series of concerns and ethical questions regarding communication with participants, the public/private nature of these spaces and the potentially shifting nature of the researcher/participant relationship.

By reflecting upon my own experiences of using my personal Facebook account to recruit participants, it is my hope that this will assist in guiding and informing other researchers’ navigation of the ethical challenges posed by online research. As I have noted throughout this article, there is not necessarily one ‘correct’ pathway for researchers navigating the use of SNSs. Rather, the key lesson here is that researchers should attempt to recognize and reflect on some of the issues they may encounter in using SNSs as a recruitment strategy prior to initiating their research (some of which I have highlighted throughout my discussion), and to consider the ways in which they feel comfortable managing and responding to these dilemmas. In order to identify what these issues are likely to be and how they can best be managed, it may be helpful for researchers to reflect upon the ways in which they use their social media accounts, how they ‘perform’ and manage their identities through these platforms, and how they intend to use their social networking account(s) within the context of the research. Likewise, a reflection on the norms pertaining to privacy on the SNS in question is also vitally important in informing what potential ethical dilemmas may arise and how they can best be managed or avoided. The context dependent nature of these ethical dilemmas and their potential solutions must be acknowledged within ethical guidelines on online research. Echoing the calls of Snee (2013) and Markham and Buchanan (2012), it may be helpful to draw on broader ethical principles which are then applied, discussed and reflected upon by researchers in relation to their practical applications, as this article has set out to achieve.

The need for flexible and context-dependent ethical principles is particularly so given the intersection of ethical issues with the management of online identity – a topic which is, inevitably, a personal one for which we cannot be too prescriptive. The discussion here has illustrated the tensions faced by novice academics in developing their professional identity – tensions which are heightened by the increased pressure for academics to develop an online profile, contributing towards the blurring of personal and professional selves. Although there is again no one correct way to manage these tensions, given the occasionally negative professional consequences (or, in my own case, a lack of certainty regarding what consequences may arise), this indicates that academic and other institutions would be well served by developing and clearly communicating their own guidelines and expectations of academics’ use of SNSs. Initiating conversations with novice researchers around their online identity management may also assist in alleviating some of the ethical tensions and identity crises discussed throughout this article. That said, the ways in which online identities are managed is likely to shift over time and across contexts as our identities evolve. Thus, the process of online identity management is an iterative one, and these reflexive discussions regarding identity accomplishment must be ongoing.